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Gokul Rajan, currently consultant at Citibank in Mumbai, and Nikhil Naredi, Singapore-based associate at Jones Day, are both set to be joining the new firm that will be started by Amarchand Mumbai managing partner Cyril Shroff, as partners to beef up the capital markets practice.

Rajan will be joining in Delhi, while Naredi will join in Mumbai, and both will work together on a Delhi capital markets push, according to sources close to the firm.

Both graduated from NLSIU Bangalore – Rajan in 2003 and Naredi in 2004 – and both hold US LLMs – Rajan from Northwestern University School of Law in 2007, and Naredi from Columbia Law School from 2012.

Rajan began his career at BMR & Associates, joined S&R Associates in 2007 and became a managing associate at Linklaters in Singapore between 2011 and 2014, before joining Citibank in Mumbai.

Naredi began his career at Amarchand, joining Jones Day in 2009 as an associate in Singapore.

Both did not respond to messages seeking comment. Cyril Shroff did not respond to a message seeking comment.

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Naresh is super. His joining shows that Cyril is looking to realign his IPO set up in an overall basis. Azb (without the new hire in Delhi) has stolen a march on the capitals market front - and Cyril needs to reign in

It is going to be a big blow to the top quality seniors who actually keep amarchand capital markets where it is.. lets see how Cyril retains them as promise of future partnership would be a plain lie..If they leave, they will only strengthen the competition... Naredi is a good lawyer, not sure if he will be senior to gupte... Also good internal leveraging by Cyril against both gupte and Yash..

Agree, Naredi is Mumbai has less to do with SAM v. CAM and more with Cyril trying to avoid being in the position he was when Guptan left. Also, remember foreign law firms opening in India is now more real that ever, and capital markets will be one of the first practice areas that they strike. Gokul in Delhi is not such big news.

Disloyal is borderline acceptable because it's a matter of opinion but c**p lawyer is undisputed fact, is it? Perhaps it's better for you to admit that you have your favourites and you keep pushing them

The high water mark of our moderation policy is actually going by defamation laws, as I understand them.

Calling someone disloyal is 1.) slightly silly, and 2.) in the case of someone who changes law firms frequently, it is obviously within the realm of 'fair comment' and opinion, even if it is obnoxious or somewhat unreasonable. Calling a lawyer disloyal, is not defamatory, however, unless we're talking about a profession that has in its JD slavish devotion, like 'butler' or 'secret service agent'.

But saying, for instance, that someone is a crap lawyer or incompetent, are things that are potentially defamatory when said about a professional.

Agree with you that the boundaries aren't always clear, but we try to not be censorious unless there's a legal reason to be.

We're trying to strike the best balance possible in a hard situation, between people like you complaining that we're too censorious, and others complaining that we allow anonymous attacks on individuals.

Actually your understanding of defamation laws is fairly rudimentary, which is not surprising, given that it is driven by convenience rather than any genuine attempt to comply with the law. I would only like to point out that under Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code any imputation harming a reputation of any person is considered as defamatory. This is further explained as any imputation which directly or indirectly "lowers the moral or intellectual character of that person". Therefore an accusation of disloyalty (moral) and incompetence (intellectual) are both equally defamatory. Of course it makes no difference whether there is any truth in the imputation at all (frequent job changes and horrible reputation among clients and peers are equally irrelevant ) Therefore, as I said, it's better to admit that you will censor comments against certain individuals and firms and won't against others. (This statement is also defamatory since it makes an imputation about you both from a moral as well as intellectual perspective but can, like your own defenses, also be objectively defended)

I disagree with your interpretation and don't think a court would take your view that saying someone is a bad lawyer is equivalent to calling someone disloyal for leaving a job.

I'd strongly argue that we're not in the 19th century anymore where calling someone 'disloyal' would "directly or indirectly, in the estimation of others, [lower] the moral or intellectual character of that person", particularly if said in the context of a lawyer's loyalty to an employer in an anonymous comment on a website (as opposed to, for instance, loyalty to their spouse or their country or whatever other variants of loyalty there are).

Furthermore, under criminal defamation laws the aggrieved would have to prove (beyond reasonable doubt) that there was intent or knowledge that the statements would cause harm to the reputation (in the mind of a reasonable person), on top of clearing the above hurdle.

Furthermore, under civil law truth and fair comment are a defence.

Like I said, unless we're living in a time of duels over insults to a 'gentleman's' bruised honour, there should be varying degrees in the type of statements made.

And the only practical solution, which you seem to propose, is to not publish (or allow to be published) anything that is remotely critical of anyone, ever, even in a journalistic capacity (or, bizarrely and alternatively, to publish everything).

However, I do not think the way you read them is how India's (admittedly strict) defamation laws work.

I understand that you might be upset when your comment is apparently arbitrarily not published when others are but we're operating in greys here and not in black and whites as you seem to paint them. There is some rhyme and reason to our moderation, in general, and you'd also do well to remember that the 'money hungry' and disloyal comment was promptly removed after it was reported to us.

In short, without retreading the ground already covered, what else do you suggest we do?

That is not what my comment said - my comment only said that one of the new recruits has not practiced in India for a while which is a fact that no one can dispute. What is so wrong about that ? If you want some meaningful discussion on your articles then you need to be careful with your censoring. Otherwise there is no point in having a comments section - you can just write your articles praising everything that CAM does to the high heavens.

I've worked with Gokul Rajan on Capital Markets deals. He's a terrific lawyer, and a fantastic guy. He has the ability to stay up and work hard, and when a draft comes to him, even when he's clearly exhausted, he is exactly as meticulous as he would have been twelve hours ago. He's also great at con-calls, discussions, closings - all the pain points of Cap Marks deals.

Apart from that, he has the ability to bond with the people he's working with and many of his ex-colleagues would follow him anywhere. So would the clients he's worked with. I can think of at least three majors in the telecom sector who would always want to give him work.

It's very easy to snipe from behind a pseudonym online, and it's equally easy to praise somebody to their face while harbouring any number of jealousies. What may be harder is supporting your views with either personal observations, or with actual evidence which is deal or litigation specific. Nobody is under any duty to take you seriously if you can't back up what you say.

Can't agree more with Scheherzade. Gokul's capabilities are well established and those who have worked with him (or across him) on deals will testify. There is a lot to learn from him. Just because he's not as flashy as some other equally capable lawyers on the street doesn't mean that he's not a good leader. Of course, there are things he needs to improve on, but I'm pretty sure he has a plan chalked out for each of those. CM lawyers in Delhi (read Madhurima, Prashant, etc.) better watch out.